The present invention relates to a defect detection method and its apparatus in which when detecting defects present on a thin film substrate, a semiconductor substrate, a photo-mask and the like that are used for manufacturing a semiconductor chip, a liquid crystal product, a magnetic disk head and a sensor such as CCD or CMOS as well and then when analyzing the cause of the faults, the results of inspection can be displayed or outputted in a format easy for a user to analyze, thus permitting the cause of the faults to be surveyed.
Conventionally, the technique of detecting defects on, for example, a semiconductor substrate by using an optical measurement means has been known widely. For example, Patent Document 1 (JP-A-62-89336) discloses a technique in which rays of scattering light, generated from a defect under irradiation of a laser beam on a semiconductor substrate in the event that the defect is deposited thereon, are detected and a result of detection is compared with a result of an inspection of the same kind of semiconductor substrate executed immediately precedently, thereby making it possible to inspect the defect.
Also, Patent Document 2 (JP-A-5-273110) or patent Document 3 (JP-A-2003-98111) discloses a method in which a laser beam is irradiated on an object to be inspected and scattering rays of light generated from a particle or crystal defect of the inspected object are received and subjected to image processing to thereby measure a size of the particle or crystal defect.
On the other hand, in the production line of semiconductor substrate, thin film substrate and the like, a control method of monitoring defects on a substrate has hitherto been employed as one of methods for controlling the production process of products. In one of the monitoring methods, the surface of a substrate is inspected using a defect inspection apparatus and the lapse of the number of detected defects delivered out of the defect inspection apparatus is monitored so that a fault analysis of defects may be executed especially for a substrate for which the number of detected defects is large.